


Temples of Peace

by illune



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Fluff, M/M, Owls, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-30
Updated: 2016-08-30
Packaged: 2018-08-12 01:04:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7914367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illune/pseuds/illune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hanzo Shimada never thought he would be involved so deeply in a family of retired soldiers, baby owls and play dates.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Temples of Peace

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jellycho (Nyxokal)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxokal/gifts), [nikorys](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikorys/gifts).



> The retirement AU should be Overwatch's single player campaign.

When asked to describe the concept of _home_ , people often resort to using old sayings, vague descriptions of oddly decorated houses, and memories tainted of the sweet feeling that childhood brings to everything. The word always brought a picture or a scene to mind: a warm cup of coffee in a flannel sofa, favorite music blasting through a stereo on a rainy day, a horror movie night in bed.

For Hanzo, it was a complicated concept.

Morrison had planted the question one afternoon at dinner in the ex-commanders’ home. Jesse’s insistence on visiting his _old pops_ had become more pressing after they had loved meeting Hanzo. That night the conversation had drifted towards Doña, and the possibility of her having babies. The prospect of more owls that clawed at his eyes and terrorized him made Morrison uneasy, but touching the subject made Reyes angry and defensive. The table would’ve been tense if it hadn’t been for Jesse, whose bickering and imagination over how the baby owls would look like gave Reyes a huge, toothy grin.

“What about your home, Hanzo? Do you also have horrible animals trying to leave you blind?” Morrison had asked, holding up a content laugh and trying not raising his voice over to alert Reyes of his insult towards the owl. Jesse however, did catch the question, and his exaggerated gesturing decreased.

Hanzo stared at the mashed potatoes he had been avoiding to eat. Too much salt. He had thought of carefully sliding his portion to Jesse’s plate, but insulting the former Strike Commander on his cooking wasn’t a good idea. Specially in his own home, riddled with pulse rifle holes and cracked walls. Jesse kept up the pace of his conversation with Reyes, but one of his hands had snuck under the table to grab Hanzo’s thigh reassuringly. He knew.

“Hanamura is a very… pleasant location.” Hanzo rolled a small pea around the plate, Jesse clutched tightly. Finding good things to say about his time in the place he was born was always tricky and unwanted. More than once, Jesse had tried to peek inside that memory lane and it never ended up nicely. “That would be my home, I guess.”

“You know what they say about homes right?” Morrison sensed that it was a topic that  shouldn’t be touched, and Hanzo was grateful but feared whatever he would say next. “Home is a temple filled with love, where the heart can reside and prosper”

“How do you come up with shit like that Jack.” Reyes snapped from his side of the table, waving a half-downed beer bottle around. His hair had become longer and more wild, Hanzo noted, so it was very likely that the next time they met he would have his regular buzz cut. “You’re looking more and more like an old woman with each passing day.”

“Fuck off Gabe,” Morrison sighed and stood up with his plate in one hand. “I was just trying to give a nice advice to the younger ones. This is why I’m glad we never had _human_ kids”

“What the fuck do you mean by that?!”

“And what about _me?!_ ” Jesse’s pained voice took everybody by surprise. The cowboy had a fake shock expression on his face that made him look like a child, right hand over his chest. Hanzo loved every part of it, and could barely hold on a laugh. “Dads?! Am I adopted?!”

“Fuck off, McCree.” Reyes downed what was left of his beer and followed his husband, who was laughing uncontrollably, into the kitchen. Hanzo laughed softly into Jesse’s shoulder, his smell of smoke and leather always comforting. The older couple started their bickering and screaming shortly afterwards, a plate was thrown into the sink and a loud clattering noise echoed through the house. Jesse hugged Hanzo with one arm and clung to him.

The cuckoo clock rang eight times, and Hanzo wondered if Morrison had made it himself despite Reyes’ protests. Where would the bird’s head be now? Was that mangled clock up there just in spite and irony? If so, which of the two left it? Hanzo could almost be sure that Reyes had insisted on leaving the clock on the wall, especially after meeting Death Blossom. And knowing the basic dynamics of their day-to-day life, Hanzo was also certain that Morrison was keeping the wooden bird’s head somewhere in their room to haunt Reyes.

Doña Gritos, perched at the top of a wooden beam, scratched and pecked at a bullet hole.

A rackety house full of scars for a family of thirteen.

 _Home_.

* * *

 

Hanzo and Jesse bought their first apartment ever when Doña’s babies were about to hatch. Two months went by amidst the moving, unpacking, settling, and buying furniture. Thanks to the rather nomad lifestyle they had before, and while in, Overwatch, they both thought that acclimatizing to a static environment where privacy existed would be rather quick and easy.

It wasn’t.

Ash from Jesse’s cigars covered everything in a week, so Hanzo had to give up his favorite space for his plants in order to make a Smoking Area in the balcony. Hanzo cluttered the bathroom sink with so many _beauty products_ , as Jesse liked to call them, that by the end of the first month they were sleeping on separate rooms for a week after Jesse spilled a bottle of an expensive oil mix. A plate or two were broken after a discussion on the excessive amount of times Jesse wore his boots inside just for show.

By the third week of the second month, after another fight on how disgusting it was that Jesse used his serape as a napkin – and towel, and blanket – Hanzo was absolutely convinced that they both would be breaking up soon, as it was unbearable to coexist with someone like Jesse. He felt torn as he went to answer the unending door bells and knocks, his hair untied and messy from stress. Behind him, Jesse was huffing and stomping around, trying to find his hat for comfort. At any other moment, Hanzo would’ve thought it was adorable.

He didn’t expect a familiar owl, at 2:34 in the afternoon, to be in the hallway when he opened the door.  Reyes and Morrison had decided to drop by to check up on them.

“Jackie was worried to see how you two were doing” Reyes let himself in, patting Hanzo’s bare chest as he walked by, Doña comfortably perched on his shoulder.

McCree’s movement stopped the second he heard his _parents_ talking.

“Moving in is traumatic, I would know” Morrison remained at the door while holding a tiny wicker basket closed with a lid. He continued before Reyes could scream. “Besides, we got a huge surprise for you two! Consider it a gift or something”

Hanzo let Morrison in with a movement of his hand and closed the door afterwards. He suddenly felt very vulnerable in his half-naked state. When he turned around, Jesse was trying to get unstuck of a failed attempt to put on a t-shirt, his belly exposed and showing scars to the three of them.

Morrison placed the basket down in the living room’s coffee table, moving aside a stack of horse-related magazines Jesse had bought in an impulse of wanting to become a horse rider, like a certain movie character. As Hanzo hurried to help Jesse out, he could’ve sworn the basket moved. He feared the worst.

“What kind of surprise Jack?” Jesse smiled at Hanzo, tiredly and, Hanzo thought, maybe apologizing, before turning to Morrison and Reyes. The latter had already sat down at one side of the sofa closest to the windows, while Morrison looked around the apartment with curiosity, the claw marks under his eye being evident as ever.

Hanzo had insisted on keeping the decoration minimal. It would be easier to clean and it wouldn’t get cluttered. All the plants, synthetic and real, were bought by him and placed in very specific places of the apartment: A bamboo palm in the far corner of the living room to dissolve tensions, Lilies and Chrysanthemums in the kitchen for happiness, white magnolias in their bedroom. And a cactus, that was currently flowering in the balcony, because Jesse insisted. He just thought Hanzo liked plants, so questions were never asked as to why the need for them. The older dragon felt at peace in this place, somewhere to call his, but living together with Jesse was a hassle.

“Well, I don’t know if you two idiots were aware, but there are new babies in this family” Reyes slapped his knee to catch everyone’s attention as he spoke. Jesse’s hand on his shoulder startled Hanzo, so sudden and forceful. The cowboy’s jaw tensed, a small pout forming. “And since we already have so many birds, well, Jack thought it would be a good idea to let you pick one of the baby owls.”

Before Jesse could begin his screeching, Morrison lifted the top of the basket to reveal three small birds. The ex-commander picked up the golden one, who hooted softly and pressed against his face when Morrison went for a smooch.

Hanzo was immediately drawn to a pair of orange eyes that had fixated on him the second the wicker top disappeared. _Sunsets_ , he thought, _I’m looking at a pair of sunsets, like the ones Jesse likes to gaze at_.

Reyes had gotten up to calm Jesse’s screaming as he tried to snatch Morrison’s owl from his hands. While the three of them were busy with their own melodramatic issues, Hanzo walked to the basket, and pet the orange-eyed owl. It blinked twice and bit at his finger, drawing blood. Hanzo reeled back, and decided to just let his hand hover above the bird, cautious for a second attack. Instead, it hooted and looked for his affection.

The rubbing feathers took him back to the summers in Hanamura, when Genji’s forgotten sparrows flew out, in, and around his room, resting above his head while he meditated. He remembered waking up with their singing at sunrise, using their feathers to decorate gifts for his brother. When Genji dyed his hair green, the sparrows flew around his head, perhaps in confusion at such an electric color, as Hanzo scolded the young dragon.

He had mourned them when they died.

They had been family, after all.

His home.

Hanzo had barely noticed the room going quiet as the owl climbed on his hand and nested within it. The clenching on his chest barely allowed him to breathe, the sounds of his short and erratic intake of air alarming the other three men. It wasn’t after Jesse shook him that Hanzo remembered he was bare-chested in the living room with his potential fathers-in-law. Jesse’s face made him worried, Hanzo could only register fear in McCree’s expression.

“Hanzo, please, what’s wrong” Jesse rubbed his cheek with something wet, and he desperately hoped it was just water. Hanzo could never forget the time Jesse had picked up the disgusting habit of chewing tobacco and spat everywhere. When he talked again, it was barely a whisper, only for Hanzo “Darlin’ talk to me, why are you crying?”

“What?” Hanzo’s free hand shot up instinctively towards his face, finding it moist. Then, he looked at the small owl that, despite having bitten him, had started to fall asleep. Reyes and Morrison stood in silence, both of their owls indifferent to the whole situation. Jesse hugged him tight, rubbing his back with the non-prosthetic hand.

Morrison cleared his throat and left the golden owl back in the basket with its sibling.

“It’s fine if you don’t want one of the babies” The ex-commander also looked concerned, maybe even a bit shocked on how traumatic Hanzo’s reaction to the new kids had been.

“Yeah kid. Corn is already Jack’s, and one of the other two was gonna be for Lucio and Reinhardt anyways” Reyes scratched his head, hair trimmed down, and walked towards the kitchen. “Maybe Hana wants o-“

“No.” Hanzo’s voice came muffled from Jesse’s chest. Out of instinct, he huddled the small bird close to his chest, fitting it comfortably between him and McCree. “Please. Let’s keep him, Jesse.” His voice was tender, something Jesse wasn’t expecting. “I will do anything, please, I beg of you”.

“Hanzo” Jesse’s chest vibrated, his soft chuckle running through Hanzo “You don’t even have to ask sweetie” Hanzo felt Jesse’s kiss at the top of his head just as the little owl repositioned in his hand.

“Well then” Hanzo peeked shyly from where he was being hugged. It was shameful to have people other than Jesse see him in such a vulnerable, open state. Morrison smiled at the scene, Reyes hugging him by the shoulders “Welcome to the feathered family, kids.”

* * *

 

Six steaming mugs surrounded the glass table: coffee for Reyes, hot chocolate for Lucio and Jesse, tea for Reinhardt, Morrison and Hanzo. The owl siblings flew clumsily around their parents, Doña casually perched at the window, bathing in the sun.

“I still can’t believe you named him _Owl_ ” Lucio’s back rested against one of Reinhardt’s large arms.

Hanzo was surprised once again at how polar opposites tend to attract. The Brazilian boy had, at least in appearance, absolutely nothing in common with the former Crusader. Yet there they were, Lucio wearing a grey shirt with a lion motif and Reinhardt using a green hoodie with Lucio’s iconic frog stamp. _Specially made_ , Hanzo thought after catching up on the detail of the frog’s scar on its right eye, matching Reinhardt’s.

“Hey, stop makin’ fun of my Fukucci!” Jesse screamed, interrupting his conversation with Reyes. “Besides, what kinda name is Catina anyways?!”

“It means _pure_ in Portuguese” Hanzo refilled his cup of tea, smiling at how defensive Jesse had gotten over their _baby_.

“Fuck, just how many languages do you speak?” Reyes voice came muffled from behind his mug, Morrison elbowing him in the ribs and mouthing a _language_ while pointing at Lucio with his chin.

“Listen, I know you’re St. Jude and all that,” Lucio took a sip from his beverage and pointed a finger towards Jesse, who had placed Corn and Catina in his hat. “But be careful with my Cati.”

“St. Jude?” Hanzo smiled at the sight of Jesse, his playfulness always filled the room. Sometimes even in unwanted situations like tense negotiations. Once, around the peripheral areas of Hanamura, Jesse had thought it would be interesting to see how much a weapon dealer would bargain at a poker hand.

 _‘Let’s see how he_ deals _. Get it, Hanzo?’._

How could you hate and love someone so much at the same time, he wondered.

“Yeah, you know, the patron saint of lost causes?” Small Catina hooted softly and Lucio placed her at the top of his head, the owl comfortably huddling among the Brazilian’s hair. “The point is; careful with my daughter cowboy.”

“Lady Catina will be fine, my dear Lucio” Reinhardt’s thunderous voice shook Hanzo, it was still hard to get used to the older man’s volume. “Jesse is a fine man; our child is safe in his care”

The older dragon couldn’t help but keep a smile on his face. It was all so different, light-hearted, ever since adding the small owl to the family. All the cracks, shotgun shells, and knife marks in the Morrison-Reyes household made sense to him now. How despite Reyes visibly threaten to stab Morrison with a teaspoon, the two of them would kiss seconds afterwards. How Reinhardt payed attention to every little detail of Lucio while he took pictures of the two baby owls in the hat-boat, perhaps to send them to Hana.  

Familiarity and unconditional love.

Fukucci looked at his siblings, lazily standing next to Hanzo’s mug for its warmth. One of Reinhardt’s fingers ran carefully through the owl’s feathers, petting him softly.

“Excuse me for a second, everyone” Jesse stood up, leaving the hat in care of Lucio. “This cowboy needs a little smoke break”

As Jesse made his way to the balcony, opening and closing the sliding door, Lucio’s photographing tripled.

“I must ask, Master Hanzo” Reinhardt’s tone came curious, and everyone turned towards him. “Did something happen to Fukucci? Why are there colored bandages around his feet?”

“Those are ribbons, Reinhardt” Hanzo’s gaze turned downwards to the colored strips around the owl’s feet. Gold on the right, red on the left. His smile widened as he allowed himself to remember.

On a rather uneventful night, after taking a warm bath with Jesse, Hanzo left the tub a minute earlier to start dinner. As he dried himself in the bedroom, still thinking if it would be a good idea to make Yakisoba instead of plain pasta, Jesse broke into the room holding his golden scarf completely wet. Before Hanzo could protest on what was his reasoning on dumping one of his favorite possessions into soap water, the small owl peeked his head out from the cloth. Jesse, currently naked, wet and screaming, explained how the owl had been resting atop Hanzo’s neatly folded scarf, but got curious of the splashing water as Jesse started playing around. Fukucci simply flew to the edge of the tub and slipped inside. Panicked, he had grabbed the scarf and tried to dry the owl with it after taking it out the water.

 _I didn’t use my serape_ , the cowboy had said, _because I know you think it’s gross_.

Hanzo had never laughed so hard before, and Jesse’s puppy eyes made it worse.

How many times had he fallen in love over and over again, he wondered?

“It’s one for Jesse, one for me.” Hanzo was yanked back to the present, orange eyes staring back at him. “So Fukucci can always remember us.”

The table remained quiet for a few seconds, then Hanzo excused himself to check up on Jesse. Before he could close the door Jack’s voice reached him, already making plans with Lucio on what Corn and Catina would wear. Hanzo could imagine Gabe’s exasperation.

The sky had begun to turn purple, the sunset finishing.

“Hey” Hanzo stood next to Jesse, avoiding the cigar’s smoke.

“Hello darlin’, you come here often?” Jesse smiled and kissed Hanzo’s forehead. The smaller man scoffed, but he liked that Jesse still sneakily flirted with him as if he was a stranger. Jesse’s wild, brown hair danced softly with the wind. Hanzo always liked him better without the hat. Jesse’s prosthetic grabbed the cigar from his mouth and he blew out the smoke.

Hanzo took advantage of this, and kissed the cowboy quickly and softly.

“I love you, Jesse McCree” Fingers tangled in the other one’s beard, Hanzo went for a second kiss. Jesse’s face flustered, lips inviting, non-prosthetic arm wrapping around Hanzo’s waist.

A perfect moment, interrupted by the balcony door opening.

Inside, Lucio and Reinhardt sang along _The best of both worlds_ blasting through the stereo. The tacky guitar sounds and screeching female voice made Hanzo shudder.

“I swear to god McCree!” Reyes almost flung his coffee cup towards the couple “Get your ass in here and stop this unless you want me to throw that stupid radio out the fucking window!”

“It’s a fuckin’ classic Gabe!” Jesse held Hanzo’s hand and started to guide them both towards the apartment.

As they walked back, Fukucci met his parents halfway, and climbed atop Jesse’s head.

 _Family_ , Hanzo thought with a smile, _what a weird family I have._

 

**Author's Note:**

> -This started as a happy thought: What would happen if all of Doña's children had a play date. Then Hanzo Shimada happened and it got out of control.   
> -Jesse McCree is a slut for Hanna Montana.


End file.
